# Minneapolis to Disband Police Dept. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2020, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247 "2020-06-08T14:04:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/41 "2020-06-09T12:54:41Z")
Interesting article on what happened when Camden, N.J. abolished its corrupt police department and established a new one with much different priorities: [This New Jersey city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/42 "2020-06-09T12:55:08Z")
In order to disband the MPD, Mayor Frey would have to sign on with the city council, and so far he has stated it is not going to happen. Also, in the past whenever MPD needed assistance they would call on Hennepin County and Anoka County Sheriff’s Departments. Anoka County has said nope. Hennepin County has not said much. The MPD has been failing for decades. Around 5-6 years ago, I think it was, a decision was made basically to stop pursuing what could be considered low-level crimes (there is a specific phrase they used, but I cannot remember it). Not pulling people over for tinted windows, expired tabs, broken lights. House broken into? We’ll get to you. Domestics? Hope you’re not dead before we get there. If we get there. Now, in some ways it was understandable. Minneapolis has a large gang and drug problem and the MPD had just gone through a major retirement wave. We didn’t get the nickname Murderapolis for no reason. That was also when the city pushed for diversifying the PD, which has led to increased racism within the department. You had old school white cops, living well in the suburbs, now being partnered with non-white young cops who live if not IN the city, at least in an inner ring suburb. It created a lot of division within the PD, as the old school cops tend to be of the “Take down the bad guys” mindset, and many (not all) of the new guys were there to “Serve and Protect”. Changes need to be made. They are looking at Camden and other cities that have started all over again. When the U of M, the Minneapolis School District, the Minneapolis Park Board, and countless businesses have severed ties with the MPD, all who have utilized them daily for public events or off-duty security, that’s huge. And, FWIW, every single public sector union has strongly denounced the police union and Kroll. The only people I know that support the MPD staying as is are either cops / ex-cops / people who view the city as a zoo, happy to live on the outside, wagging their fingers at “those people” who live there. Now. Saying all that. Some on the city council are living their best rose-coloured glasses lives. When asked about what would happen in a DV situation without a police department, the response was entirely about supporting the victim. Nothing about the offender. What about the drug problems? Talks about treatment only. It’s all feel good talk. There still needs to be enforcement of laws, and they don’t really have a concrete solution. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/43 "2020-06-09T22:19:04Z")
> [@MissTake](#): > > Now. Saying all that. Some on the city council are living their best rose-coloured glasses lives. When asked about what would happen in a DV situation without a police department, the response was entirely about supporting the victim. Nothing about the offender. What about the drug problems? Talks about treatment only. It’s all feel good talk. There still needs to be enforcement of laws, and they don’t really have a concrete solution. Sure, great question. Part of the issue is it’s case-by-case. You can’t give a uniform solution to every potential situation. There is absolutely a ton of work related to this and I can share some. The reason all the talk is about the victims is, firstly, that victims have always been de-emphasized in criminal justice proceedings, other than as a prop for convicting a perpetrator. People are centering victim-first language because they want the public safety system to take their needs into account, because they’re the one who was wronged. Sure, the court system may award them “damages” but in general you’re on your own to find your own resources for therapy, your own housing with family, etc if you need to heal or get away from a situation. One of the things these new models reject is the perpetrator/survivor dichotomy, and recognizes that perpetrators can **be** survivors who need to heal from bad patterns they learned from abusive childhoods or previous relationships as well. Generally speaking, these processes try to meet the needs of three people at once, focusing primarily on the victim: victim, community, and perpetrator. That said, community accountability processes absolutely have things in place for perpetrators, and makes a big part of “transformative justice” which is dedicated to **transforming** people who do bad things so they get the help they need to not re-offend, and this includes recognizing things like that prison systems and felony records stand in the way of accountability and change by marking a person forever. The idea is that it’s the **community’s** collective responsibility to foster the personal growth of all the people living in it, and that includes helping them recover if they’ve fallen into bad patterns and hurt someone. In general CA/TJ is focused on a “consequences instead of punishment” model, and tries to give people the resources they need to move on and heal, while taking the victim’s needs into account (e.g. not seeing them again). I’d like to quote that book I cited above again, which is a workbook for CA/TJ facilitator training: > [@](#): > > When trying to assess an appropriate consequence for harm: > > 1. Does this consequence feel like a natural consequence for the harm that happened? Am I trying to create a spectacle with this consequence? > > 2. Does this feel more like revenge? Am I going down the eye-for-an—eye route, or am I trying to stop immediate harm and offer support for healing and growth to happen? > > 3. Am I getting vindictive pleasure from this consequence instead of finding a way to make amends? > > 4. Are we figuring out what both the person who was harmed and the person who has caused harmed need in order to heal? Or are we trying to replicate the same pain and humiliation that happened when the initial harm took place? > > 5. Consequences are not universal. Asking a person who has caused harm in one setting to leave could be a consequence for one situation and a punishment in another. Always return to the thought: what outcome do we want with this consequence? An end to immediate harm and a path to healing, or revenge and reciprocal pain for the person who caused harm? > > 6. When you recognize that you have put into place a punishment masked as a consequence, you have the opportunity to stop, make amends for the hurt that you may have caused, and start over. Don’t leave the situation because you messed up! Apologize, make amends, and move forward. > > 7. Check in with people who are removed from the situation to assess if they can > understand how you arrived at a certain consequence. I constantly am sending messages to my best friend asking, “Does this sound right to you? Was that harsh or does this make sense?" Reach out to someone who is not afraid to call you on your shit! Messing up doesn’t make you a bad person; just be honest with yourself and stay true to your goal of moving forward with harm reduction, healing, and reconciliation. This shit is hard, and it’s impossible to not make mistakes. So the consequences for a perpetrator for domestic violence may be: 1. Giving them temporary housing of some form while they move away from the partner they abused. 2. Requiring them to get therapy to deal with the issues that caused them to be abusive. 3. Making them show some sort of progress in tackling these issues before they can see their children again. And so on. Again, not all of these consequences may be appropriate for every situation. For instance, there are chances the one regarding children may not be necessary. Or sometimes the abused partner may not need or want them to move away, and only therapy would be needed (subject to revising this decision if they reoffend too much). Do note that not every single thing fits a CA process, and people recognize that. Some things are bad, but don’t require a process to resolve themselves, and some power dynamics don’t play with it well (e.g. executive director and staff has too much of a power imbalance unless the executive director is willing to step down during the process). So this doesn’t cover every potential crime, but it works for a lot of them, particularly interpersonal violence (physical, emotional, or sexual). Which is why the process is also focused on other preventative measures e.g. providing housing and basic necessities, and funding needle sharing and drug rehabilitation programs. There are obviously other crimes that don’t fit in this, and given specific examples I could probably explain how they would fit under a police abolition model, but it’s too open of a question otherwise. And like I said, it’s **possible** that in very, very rare and extreme cases, such as serial killers, there may still be some limited notion of a detective and other related systems to deal with those that are police, but severely, severely downsized from what they are now. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/44 "2020-06-10T00:43:04Z")
Ok, basic question. Someone breaks into your house. They steal something. Do I have a right to stop them with even deadly force? If I have the person outside and I’m holding them down, should I call the police? ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/45 "2020-06-10T00:53:09Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > O… Someone breaks into your house. They steal something. Do I have a right to stop them with even deadly force? … I suppose it’s dependent on how much your tv set is worth to you. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/46 "2020-06-10T01:13:16Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ok, basic question. Someone breaks into your house. They steal something. Do I have a right to stop them with even deadly force? If I have the person outside and I’m holding them down, should I call the police? If they’re inside, every state gives you the right to defend yourself. if they’re outside breaking into your car, some states give you the right to go outside and kill them. Which is fucked up. If all they’ve done is steal something, it’s foolish to put yourself within reach. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/47 "2020-06-10T02:19:46Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ok, basic question. Someone breaks into your house. They steal something. Do I have a right to stop them with even deadly force? If I have the person outside and I’m holding them down, should I call the police? In Arkansas, if they are in your house, “your back is to the wall” and you may shoot them if you are in fear of your life. I would hold them and call the cops. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/48 "2020-06-10T17:02:27Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Anyway, the main competition to policing is Community Accountability and Transformative Justice practices. The goals of transformative justice are: > > Community accountability is a framework under which transformative justice happens where individual communities (churches, neighborhoods, schools, etc) put the needs of a survivor or victim of crime first and give them what they need to heal, while **also** giving the perpetrator the help they need to change themselves (e.g. mental health support, trauma counseling and many other things). It’s also comprehensive social restructuring in communities to get rid of the conditions that cause crime in the first place - not much reason to steal from the local supermarket when you’re guaranteed food and a place to live, for instance. > > Note that this doesn’t propose a single agency you plop in the place of the police that handles everything labelled “crime” right now. There’s no community accountability process to handle going 55 in a 45 zone. Instead it’s talking about forwarding various crimes to different, specialized mediators and handlers in the community who can facilitate a harm for that specific problem. There’s no uniform solution for every existing crime or community, but that’s the generally “shape” of the proposal. > > There’s a book I highly recommend called Fumbling Towards Repair by Mariame Kaba and Shira that gives a **lot** of concrete details about how this looks, and very practical advice from people who have been doing TJ/CA facilitation and work for years (though it almost exclusively focuses on sexual violence work, with is a bit restrictive when talking about how to handle, e.g., murder and such), but I want to start with quoting two of their sections on common challenges to the idea, because that’s always the first thing that comes up: > > In addition, I’ll say that as a rape victim, a lot of people don’t report their rape because they **don’t** want the severe consequences for their rapist. A lot of people love their rapist, and have complex feelings about them. They may be very hurt, and need to not see the person again (or some people remain friends), and want to be able to heal and have their rapist become a better person, and not want to sentence them to years in prison and have a forever-standing red mark that bars them from a lot of employment. It provides more space for survivors to get what they need. > > In short: the current criminal justice system has a tendency to create the very problems it justifies itself as solving, and restructuring the police to other entities more naturally handles various societal ills. Does that mean complete police and prison abolition? We can squabble about individual instances and hypotheticals here and there, but I think the broader point remains that in many and most cases, crimes are either not adequately handled by the police or would be better handled by other agencies with specific training. And almost never in the current system is the root cause of the crime handled (e.g. poverty or trauma), nor are the needs of the victim considered. Respectfully, I think this is wrongheaded. To take your first example, people steal all of the time even when their basic needs are met. Look at Wall Street. Look at how stores lock up small expensive electronic items. People won’t die if they don’t have their Garmin GPS, it’s just that they want it. And from being in the criminal justice system, we devote massive amounts of resources to restorative justice and sadly it is an abysmal failure. Anytime I have a client who sold drugs, stole things, forged checks or anything non-violent, if I can convince a judge it was because of a drug problem or youthful immaturity, that client doesn’t go to prison, he or she gets probation and a myriad of impressive services that the state offers. However the success rate is vanishingly small. That client that I worked my ass off to keep out of prison will invariable commit more crimes, fail to take advantage of services and after again and again and again failing, ends up going to prison. Even people who aren’t addicted to drugs were never taught proper values. They were never taught that on a weekday, you get your ass out of bed early and find something productive to do. You can’t teach these people because they don’t understand what in the hell you are trying to teach them. So, we already do what you are proposing, except you propose replacing it with an insanely complicated system. Sure, it’s a great thing for the community to help crime victims, but you need to remove people from the community who are committing crimes to reduce the number of those victims. Sure, a lot of sexual assault victims do not report the crime, but you want to take away the option of reporting for those who wish to do so? Should a violent serial rapist just get counseling? All of these and other suggestions are a solution in search of a problem. We have people who are trained to investigate and enforce these laws and they are called police officers. The issue is not having police in the first place, it is taking care that they do not abuse their power. Mandatory body cams are a no brainer and enact strict rules that if the cam is not functioning, that officer does not go on a call. There should be no way to disable the cam. I would even favor an exclusionary rule that any evidence found while not wearing a body cam cannot be introduced at a criminal trial, and the officer disciplined for not having it on. I would create a private right of action for any citizen who is approached by the police when the police are not recording. All cam footage should be public property and posted on the internet. I too have seen how the “battery ran out” so many times that I even joke with the police that I want to know the company that makes their body cams and batteries because I will never buy anything from those companies because they make such shoddy products. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/49 "2020-06-10T17:22:43Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > They should use Camden NJ as a model – Camden NJ disbanded their PD in 2013, and built a new department from the ground up, and it’s been extremely succesful: > > [Bloomberg - Are you a robot?](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-crime-in-camden/549542/) That was just classic Union and contract busting. Most officers were rehired- at lower pay. > **[The Media Urge to Explain away ‘Defund the Police’ | National Review](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-media-urge-to-explain-away-defund-the-police/)** > > There’s been an immediate rush by the media to write pieces explaining that, of course, “defund the police” does not actually mean “defund the police.” _Camden, New Jersey actually went forward with disbanding its police department — in theory. In practice, what Camden did is just old-fashioned union-busting: disband the department to get rid of the union, then hire the same cops back at lower salaries and benefits._ And altho it is true that "_Minneapolis lawmakers vow to disband police department in historic move."_ it is not true so far that "_Minneapolis to Disband Police Dept."_ _Defunding police is also wildly impractical. The Minneapolis City Council grabbed headlines by voting to defund and disband the city’s police department, but they don’t actually have the legal authority to do that; defunding would require a revision to the city charter, which the voters would have to approve. Until then, the cops report to the city’s mayor, not the city council._ So, it’s really just a PR move. Mind you, the “Defund the Police” movement _will_ ensure that trump gets re-elected. Of course we all know that what the backers of the movement MEAN is “Reform” or “cut bloated budgets”, but that people will think is "Abolish the Police- and who can blame them, since “Defund the Police” does literally mean that. Good idea- really crappy name. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/50 "2020-06-10T17:26:05Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > … > > Abolish/Defund the police are still terrible slogans and a pure gift for the Republicans who are jumping all over it. Yep, they are already jumping on it. With some justifcation. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/51 "2020-06-10T17:28:08Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > They’re not going to have NO police department; they’re going to disband it and reform it in a way that will make it more accountable to the public. > … I bet they dont. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/52 "2020-06-10T18:22:31Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That was just classic Union and contract busting. Most officers were rehired- at lower pay. > [The Media Urge to Explain away 'Defund the Police' | National Review](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-media-urge-to-explain-away-defund-the-police/) > > _Camden, New Jersey actually went forward with disbanding its police department — in theory. In practice, what Camden did is just old-fashioned union-busting: disband the department to get rid of the union, then hire the same cops back at lower salaries and benefits._ > > And altho it is true that "_Minneapolis lawmakers vow to disband police department in historic move."_ it is not true so far that "_Minneapolis to Disband Police Dept."_ > _Defunding police is also wildly impractical. The Minneapolis City Council grabbed headlines by voting to defund and disband the city’s police department, but they don’t actually have the legal authority to do that; defunding would require a revision to the city charter, which the voters would have to approve. Until then, the cops report to the city’s mayor, not the city council._ > > So, it’s really just a PR move. > > Mind you, the “Defund the Police” movement _will_ ensure that trump gets re-elected. Of course we all know that what the backers of the movement MEAN is “Reform” or “cut bloated budgets”, but that people will think is "Abolish the Police- and who can blame them, since “Defund the Police” does literally mean that. > > Good idea- really crappy name. The rehiring the same people boggles my mind. If the idea is (and I don’t agree with it) that the organization is just so corrupt and infiltrated with evil people who are brutal and drunk on their own power, then what is the point of just having those exact same people, top to bottom, in an organization that does exactly the same thing but is just called something else? If the idea is that we need new leadership and do things a different way, then just fire the leadership and hire a new leader that will implement the different way policy. Why the need to “defund” or “abolish” The Minneapolis Police Department and create a new organization with a different name? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/53 "2020-06-10T18:58:30Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > The rehiring the same people boggles my mind. If the idea is (and I don’t agree with it) that the organization is just so corrupt and infiltrated with evil people who are brutal and drunk on their own power, then what is the point of just having those exact same people, top to bottom, in an organization that does exactly the same thing but is just called something else? > > If the idea is that we need new leadership and do things a different way, then just fire the leadership and hire a new leader that will implement the different way policy. Why the need to “defund” or “abolish” The Minneapolis Police Department and create a new organization with a different name? I think they can now be fired now they no longer have union representation. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/54 "2020-06-10T19:29:55Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I think they can now be fired now they no longer have union representation. Well, if that is the goal, then again, let’s pass a law saying it is against public policy for police to unionize instead of hiding it in an unrelated absolute fiction of “defunding” or “abolishing” police. I mean, we can debate unions in a different thread, but I think that given the enormous power individual police officers have, the government should keep a tight rein on that and not allow that power to be abused under the guise of civil service rules. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/55 "2020-06-10T20:53:16Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > My impression is that it’s not unions that make it hard to get rid of bad cops, but police culture in general. > > Because when we say “bad cops” we’re not talking about people who are mediocre performers at their jobs, but rather people who behave in criminal ways (and those who cover for them). This is not a story about Joe worker who lazes around half the time who management wants to get rid of but can’t because of the Evil Union. This is the story of Joe worker who beats people up on the job, and who management and the rest of his coworkers insist is just doing his best. > > Racist policing is not a union issue. Unions negotiate disciplinary procedures. In most big cities a cop who has been accused of brutality can not be interviewed before they examine the files and have to wait a day before the interview can take place. Most police departments have arbitration clauses that say a fired cop can appeal, and if the arbitrator finds that the punishment was more than what happened in the past the cop gets reinstated. That creates a cycle where cops can only be fired if they would have been fired in the past. Because of all these protections it is very difficult to get rid of bad cops. A good cop knows that if they complain about a bad cop nothing is likely to happen to them, and they will still be on the job resenting the complainer. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/56 "2020-06-10T23:29:28Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I think they can now be fired now they no longer have union representation. They do, they have a Police union, and cops can be fired even if there is a Union, note they fired all four Floyd cops. This was simply a move to cut costs. They even ended up with 100 MORE cops. It had nothing whatsoever to do with a “corrupt” PD. Sure, maybe a couple of the worst werent re-hired. But this was just cost cutting. It’s a really bad example. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/57 "2020-06-10T23:32:57Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Well, if that is the goal, then again, let’s pass a law saying it is against public policy for police to unionize instead of hiding it in an unrelated absolute fiction of “defunding” or “abolishing” police. > … Sure, so now they fire cops because they campaign for the wrong candidate, they fire every cop with a “Biden For Pres.” sign on their front lawn. Or they fire all the cops who DONT belong to the white supremacist group. Or they fire any cop with X number of complaints, which takes the bad guys about a day to figure out, so within a week every cop who is busting crooks and not on the take is gone. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/58 "2020-06-10T23:42:21Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Unions negotiate disciplinary procedures. In most big cities a cop who has been accused of brutality can not be interviewed before they examine the files and have to wait a day before the interview can take place. Most police departments have arbitration clauses that say a fired cop can appeal, and if the arbitrator finds that the punishment was more than what happened in the past the cop gets reinstated. That creates a cycle where cops can only be fired if they would have been fired in the past. > Because of all these protections it is very difficult to get rid of bad cops. A good cop knows that if they complain about a bad cop nothing is likely to happen to them, and they will still be on the job resenting the complainer. Think about what reportedly happens to a cop who complains about a bad cop - the other cops won’t work with him, ostracize him , don’t have his back and so on. I’m not a cop, but I have no doubt those things happen because although I’m not a police officer, I’ve seen them happen at my jobs. The union is a small part of the problem - it only reflects the culture of its members, where it’s more important to protect your fellow officer than to hold those fellow officers to a higher standard of behavior. We wouldn’t have so many problems if it was the brutal cops who were ostracized and the good cops expected the union to ensure that bad cops got due process and nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/59 "2020-06-11T01:08:32Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > They do, they have a Police union, and cops can be fired even if there is a Union, note they fired all four Floyd cops. > > This was simply a move to cut costs. They even ended up with 100 MORE cops. It had nothing whatsoever to do with a “corrupt” PD. Sure, maybe a couple of the worst werent re-hired. But this was just cost cutting. It’s a really bad example. Do you know if violent crime or other unlawful offenses went down after they did that? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247/60 "2020-06-11T03:28:59Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Think about what reportedly happens to a cop who complains about a bad cop - the other cops won’t work with him, ostracize him , don’t have his back and so on… Not always. Look, cops hate crooked cops, cops on the take, etc. BUT- They are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a fellow cop who they think just make a mistake. It is a very stressful job. So- a actual dirty cop? He is hated, loathed and shunned. But cop who steps over the line a few times, maybe hits a few more times that is right- well, they dont like to see that, but they figure “but for the grace of god, there go I”. I dont know a single cop that thinks Chauvin was right- in fact they hate the guy. Some of them arent so sure about the other three guys, I admit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minneapolis-to-disband-police-dept/855247.md?page=4)